


In Reverie

by jaystrifes



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/M, Fluff, Light Angst, Little Spoon Zuko, M/M, Making Out, Multi, New Relationship, Polyamory, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-12
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:01:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25216684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jaystrifes/pseuds/jaystrifes
Summary: Zuko isn’t used to being held. This becomes clear the first night Aang and Katara share a bed with him, in Daoshu, when cuddling seems like the next best step, after rushed kisses, clumsy confessions, and a long, heartfelt conversation.(Missing scene fromch. 10 of Heartlines by kuchi)
Relationships: Aang/Katara (Avatar), Aang/Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Aang/Zuko (Avatar), Katara/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 192
Collections: Heartlines Expanded Universe





	In Reverie

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Heartlines](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15805152) by [kuchi](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuchi/pseuds/kuchi). 



> Big thanks as usual to kuchi for the beta, and also for creating the wonderful Heartlines canon, the sandbox where I've made almost literally every atla fic I've written for the past year (and countless more I have yet to finish). Also thanks to the anons who sent in [the prompts](https://zutaraangtastic.tumblr.com/post/623403116912623616/i-have-a-prompt-idea-this-idea-fits-into-more-of) that turned into this!

There’s always been casual touch between them and Zuko: Katara’s instinctive hand holding, borne of navigating her village with her family during fierce white-out blizzards, and Aang’s penchant for hugging him like a panda on a tree, which became all the more comically ridiculous when he outgrew Zuko. 

But it had taken Zuko time to adjust to those habits, even when they meant only friendship. Katara knows to expect some hesitation, now that they’re adding another layer of love to their actions. They’ve agreed to take this slow, ease into the newness of being able to show their full affection.

It’s a good thing, too, because he seems almost overwhelmed just by this, sitting with them in the near-dark as they take turns playing with his hair, leaning into his shoulder, kissing him. 

When Katara breaks their latest, lingering kiss and looks up at Zuko, his pupils are wide, shaken, though she’s already lost track of how many times she’s done this. How many times Aang has. They’ve been in too good a mood for any lingering nerves to interfere. With Zuko’s enthusiastic—if stumbling—assent, it’s hard  _ not _ to kiss him, and hard not to do more.

Talk has dwindled, but they’ve been here for hours and said all they possibly could. About their feelings, about their future, about everything. It’s a relief to finally let loose after the whirlwind the past few months have been.

The sweet palm wine helps, leaving Katara pleasantly fuzzy-headed. She’s come to suspect Aang doesn’t mind the secondhand taste of it on her tongue, or Zuko’s, nearly as much as he pretends. And  _ she _ doesn’t mind watching them, feeling the bloom of nervous warmth in her gut, almost like the old eagerness of first-time teenage exploration with Aang.

The lantern’s firelight blurs a fraction when she tilts her head, gaining sharpness only in the twin reflections between Zuko’s and Aang’s eyes, which flicker open as Aang pulls back to let Zuko catch his breath. Katara notices the subtle tell of Zuko about to flip the script, the stubborn squint a moment before he takes the back of Aang’s neck and yanks him in, harder this time. Aang makes a muffled, surprised sound. The warmth in Katara’s stomach drops into a tense thrill, like when Appa plummets suddenly during flight.

Aang is the one left breathless this time, and it’s more than a little impressive, considering he’s an airbender. After a moment, the fierceness in Zuko’s posture eases, and the delightful tension fades. His voice is raspy when he murmurs, glancing to Katara, “Stay. It’s gotten late.”

It wasn’t initially part of their plan, but Katara nods, smiling over the rim of her glass. She’s game if they are, trusts that they can all handle themselves—it’s wonderful that Zuko thinks so too. They’ve shared beds as pairs before, though that was without this passion simmering so openly between them.

“Is that your way of saying you’re ready to take us to bed?” Aang asks, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows. Katara might have to think twice about it, in that case, because he’s the only one who hasn’t been drinking, and poor Zuko’s gone strawberry-red.

“Not like that, I’m not – I mean, no pressure, only if you want—”

Nothing will come of it yet, rationally speaking; Aang’s a flirt, but when she thinks back on it, he said things like that to Zuko even  _ before _ confessing his undying love for him, so Zuko must know better than to take him seriously.

Then again, nothing feels serious right now, everything perfectly light and crystalline and dreamy, all the weight of secrecy lifted from her heart. She can’t help but laugh. It infects Zuko, too, his embarrassed glower slipping and lips twitching into a smile as he shakes his head at Katara.

“So much for waiting for our honeymoon at the palace,” she says, leaning across him to poke Aang accusingly in the chest.

“Okay, okay,” Aang says, glancing at Katara as he nuzzles into the crook of Zuko’s neck with playful smugness. In return, Katara sticks her tongue out at him as she wraps herself around Zuko’s arm. “Maybe His Royal Hotness just doesn’t want to admit he’s getting sleepy.”

Zuko rolls his eyes, but he makes no move to escape them. “I changed my mind. I’m kicking you both out.”

“Too late!” With a huff of air, Aang sends himself flying backwards and lands sprawled on the nearby mattress, making himself at home.

Katara’s laughter keeps bubbling up like a running stream, trickling off only when she curves her arm around Zuko’s head and pulls him into another kiss of her own. When she stands, she’s only a little unsteady on her feet, and takes hold of both of Zuko’s hands to pull him with her. He goes to snuff out the lantern, while Katara sits on the edge of the bed and starts to let down her hair for the night. 

Aang helps without being asked, taking extra care to disentangle the ties painlessly. Katara closes her eyes with a pleased hum, enjoying his familiar hands massaging her scalp.

Yawning, she cracks her eyes open again to find Zuko still crouched by the lantern, watching her and Aang with something inscrutable in his expression, something both fragile and ardent. The low-burning light casts half his face in a mellow orange glow, until he shakes himself from his reverie and puts out the candle’s flame.

“Come on, I promise I won’t let my husband jump you,” she says, patting the space beside her.

“Hey, I’m not planning to do anything indecent!” Aang protests. Katara glances over her shoulder to find him pouting and giving Zuko his best innocent Appa eyes. “I am staying in the middle, though. Unless you want to?”

Zuko shakes his head, drifting closer but still hesitating. “No, it’s just – three’s a crowd, right? I can take the sofa, and you two can have the bed, if it’s easier.”

There’s a point to that—this bed is probably meant to comfortably accommodate two at most, and Aang might as well be a person and a half, all lanky arms and legs everywhere, but Katara’s not about to let that stop them. “Zuko,” she says, with the specific kind of misplaced authority she gets only around the time that tiredness overtakes tipsiness for her. “After everything we’ve said, you really think we’d even  _ think _ of stealing your bed without you?”

Zuko opens his mouth, closes it again, and eventually says, smiling, “That barely makes sense.”

“C’mere,” Aang says, and finally, Zuko does. 

He’s still awkward when he sits next to Katara, still stiff and uncertain when Aang wraps his arms around them both. She doesn’t know whether to call it silly or sad, that Zuko has such trouble letting his guard down, letting himself accept their love, even after admitting he’s wanted this for a long time. That he never thought he would have it. Maybe that he never thought he deserved it?

She’s reached the point where she wants to cry a little bit, but she doesn’t, just presses her forehead together against his and Aang’s and lingers in the quiet intimacy of the moment. Everything she wants is right here in this room.

Eventually, Aang reaches for Zuko’s casual evening robes, with a gentle “Can I?” As he helps Zuko out of his clothes, Katara unwinds the ribbon securing Zuko’s topknot and adds it to the pile of her hair bands on the bedside table. She smooths out his hair before shrugging out of her own outer layers, down to sarashi. Normally, she likes the freedom of sleeping without the wrappings, but she figures they’re trying to maintain some propriety for Zuko’s sake, both he and Aang keeping their loose pants on.

Katara runs her hands lightly over Zuko’s bare shoulders, presses a kiss to his collarbone and then his cheek. “I’m glad we’re here with you,” she says sincerely, raising her hands to cup his face. “Earlier, I thought, we could be ruining our friendship, that we’d be forcing our feelings on you. And if you ever don’t feel what we feel, we can always stop, or—”

“Katara, please,” he whispers, and it’s a genuine entreaty, his lips ghosting against the side of her thumb. “It’s not – it’s just me, I’m not…good. At any of this. But it’s not that you’re forcing anything, I promise.”

“Hey, you  _ are _ good,” Aang says, taking both of Zuko’s hands in his. “You’re amazing, in fact. You’ve changed our lives in so many ways.”

Zuko exhales a shaky breath, a hint of a self-deprecating laugh. “Not always for the better.” He pauses, looking everywhere except for them. Katara and Aang exchange a stricken look; it’s always heart-wrenching, to hear the way he mistrusts himself. “I just worry I’ll…what if I mess it up? Everything you have, it’s already perfect, and I don’t want you to have to  _ sacrifice _ that for me. What if it’s not worth it, what if I’m…not?”

Wordlessly, Aang pulls him into a tighter hug. Zuko makes a slightly distressed sound, but holds on when Aang starts to let go in confusion and worry. With his nails digging into Aang’s arm, Katara can’t help but think he looks almost like a scared animal, utterly incongruous with the Fire Lord she knows, the image of confident power he projects. In a way, she’s always known it to be a projection, at least in part—that beneath the surface, there’s still the old volatility, like a riptide beneath a calm stretch in the waves. 

He’s grown so much, but there’s still something lost about him, something hunted. As if he still doesn’t think he’s earned his peace, and makes himself restless with doubt in recompense.

Katara’s throat closes up, and she blinks through the wateriness in her eyes as she twines her fingers with Zuko’s. He squeezes her hand so tightly it trembles.

“Listen,” she says with difficulty, “I’d gladly sacrifice plenty of things for you, I know we both would. But it is so much more than that, it’s – it’s hoping, and it’s knowing you better every day, and knowing Aang better through you, and seeing you both in everything I do for the rest of my life. You’re not taking anything away from us.”

“You’re giving us so much,” Aang finishes the thought for her, perfectly on the same wavelength. “We’re figuring this out together, all three of us. Maybe it won’t always be the easiest thing, but it  _ is _ the most freeing. It already makes me so happy, just being able to be close to you. And if this makes you happy, too, then it’s  _ so _ worth it. You’ve just gotta let yourself trust in it. Do you trust us?”

Zuko nods slowly, but unhesitatingly, and the nervous hunch of his shoulders starts to relax. He loosens his grip on Aang and Katara with an apologetic glance. Noticing her tears, he reaches up to brush them away, and when he meets Aang’s eyes, Katara can tell Zuko’s really seeing him again. He kisses Aang’s knuckles, then hers, softly. 

“We all have to leave in the morning, don’t we?” he says. “It’s probably time to sleep.”

Katara sighs and nods. When she sinks back into the mattress, Aang follows, pulling Zuko with him. “I wish we had more time,” she murmurs, resting her forehead against Aang’s back. 

“Someday we’ll have all the time in the world,” Aang says, and he sounds so assured that Katara almost finds it easy to believe the same.

“Maybe when we’re retired,” Zuko says with a small snort.

“Hey, lucky you, you get to retire! ‘Avatar’ is a lifelong job title, Mr. Fire Lord.”

Zuko musters a chuckle, and Katara props herself up with one arm beneath her head, so she can look at him over Aang’s shoulder. He’s lying on his side, facing her and Aang, bathed in the moonlight pooling in through the window.

It’s not the first time she’s noticed their matching lightning scars, the wounds she healed for each of them. These days Zuko is only shirtless during sparring matches with Aang, though, and those are always a blur of acrobatics and heat—not that she ever complains, when she gets the chance to watch. But it’s rare to observe them both so still together. Katara can trace around the familiar, messy red sprawl midway down Aang’s spine that interrupts the line of his tattoo, and almost be able to reach out and touch Zuko’s, sharper and neater on the edges, maybe from his partial redirection back then.

She resists the urge, not wanting to dwell more on the turmoil of the past when they’ve worked so hard to focus tonight on the shining bright future ahead of them. For now, she can content herself with knowing that they’re both safe, here with her.

Aang’s breathing is deepening into near-sleep, one hand extended and tangled with Zuko’s. Katara stretches her arm to join the hand pile, though Aang’s is inconveniently longer and in the way. Zuko scoots closer to accommodate, offering up his other hand to her. His long lashes sweep in a slow blink, but he’s still awake. For the first time, she notices those are mismatched in the same way as his eyebrow, never regrown on the burned side.

“You know, you have to actually close your eyes to sleep,” she says softly.

Zuko gives her a faint smile. “Yeah. I just don’t want to open them again, and find out I’ve been dreaming.”

“Aww, you’d—” Aang interrupts himself with a wide yawn “—you’d dream about us?”

“Hah, you have no idea.”

Aang laughs, and Katara raises an eyebrow with interest. But again, they’ll have to leave that for another time.

“It might help if you get comfortable,” she says, before Aang can tease Zuko further. “Turn over.” After a moment, Zuko complies, but just stays there, facing away. “Not like – I meant, turn over, and come closer, too.”

“Like spoons,” Aang adds helpfully, as Zuko shuffles into cuddling range, his back close to Aang’s chest.

Katara curls her arm across them both. “There. Now, relax. We’ve got you.”

It takes several minutes of hesitant shuffling, tiny adjustments, tensed muscles beneath her palm. While Aang’s hand rests automatically around Zuko’s middle, Katara moves hers up, reaching for his hair to thread her fingers through it, trying to soothe him. Surprisingly, it seems to help. Zuko leans his head into her touch, eases back against Aang, and breathes out a sigh that sounds…relieved.

“Love you,” Aang mumbles, almost asleep for real now. Katara knows he doesn’t intend it just for her, but she kisses his forehead, making him hum pleasantly and tangle one ankle with hers as he secures his gentle hold on Zuko.

As she’s drifting off, she hears Zuko murmur, “I –” and hesitate, his quiet swallow audible in the stillness of the night. “I’ll be better at this next time,” he says eventually. “I promise.”

Katara lays her hand over his heart. It’s still beating too fast for him to be totally at rest, but slowing, little by little. “I love you too, Zuko.”


End file.
